Monday, October 12, 2015

October 9, 2015   HOW DID J.R.R. Tolkien create The Lord of the Rings?  The simple answer is that he wrote it.  He sat down in a chair in 1937 and spent more than a dozen years working on what remains a masterwork of fantasy literature and a genius stroke of immersive worldbuilding.  The more complicated answer is that in addition to writing the story, he drew it.  The many maps and sketches he made while drafting The Lord of the Rings informed his storytelling, allowing him to test narrative ideas and illustrate scenes he needed to capture in words.  For Tolkien, the art of writing and the art of drawing were inextricably intertwined.  In the book The Art of The Lord of the Rings, we see how, and why.  The oversized tome by renowned Tolkien scholars Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull arrives next week to mark the 60th anniversary of the trilogy.  It contains more than 180 sketches, diagrams, maps, inscriptions, and trial runs of his invented alphabets, all related to The Lord of the Ringsand nearly 100 of which are just now being seen for the first time.  Ethan Gilsdorf  http://www.wired.com/2015/10/see-jrr-tolkien-lord-of-the-rings-middle-earth-illustrations-for-first-time/

The nouns weft and woof are weaving terms.  They derive from the verb to weaveWeaving is the process of crossing threads or yarns to create a woven fabric.  Picture an old-fashioned loom:  a large wooden frame.  One set of threads is fastened from top to bottom of the loom.  These vertical threads are called the warp.  Threads that cross from side to side, over and under the warp, are called the weft or the woof.  Together, the warp and the weft (or woof) are the substance of the web thus created.  Because the warp and weft represent the essence of a woven cloth, the expressions “warp and weft” and “warp and woof” came to be used figuratively to refer to anything so closely related as to be inseparable.  http://www.dailywritingtips.com/woof-or-weft/

Feedback to A.Word.A.Day
From:  Michael Sharman  Subject:  Weft  
It might help those who get confused
On which is warp and which is weft.
The warP goes uP and down the cloth.
The weft goes right and left.
From:  Mark Engel  Subject:  weft  My favorite mnemonic for the difference between warp and weft is that the weft goes weft and wight.
From:  Jens Kaiser  Subject:  quaff  The activity of “quaffing” has another meaning on Terry Pratchett’s (mayherestinpeace) Discworld. Quoting from L-space:  “Quaffing is a form of social drinking where most of the ale misses the mouth, and the tankard is used not so much as a vessel to drink from, but as something handy to conduct the singing.”

World Heritage List by various categories   The Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, was adopted by UNESCO in 1972.  http://whc.unesco.org/en/list

An architect once said to me, “The most difficult commission to fulfill is when the plot of land is a perfect, unflawed square.”  In my opinion, even Michelangelo would have a moment of pause, or even "sculptor's block," if faced with a perfect marble square.   Yet, David he sculpted from a damaged piece of marble.  That's why David leans a little to one side.  Leonardo Ciampa  The American Organist  October 2015

Donald Richard "Don" DeLillo (born 1936) is an American novelist, playwright and essayist.  His works have covered subjects as diverse as television, nuclear war, sports, the complexities of language, performance art, the Cold War, mathematics, the advent of the digital age, politics, economics, and global terrorism.  Initially a well-regarded cult writer, the publication in 1985 of White Noise brought him widespread recognition, and was followed in 1988 by Libra, a bestseller.  DeLillo has twice been a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist (for Mao II in 1992 and for Underworld in 1998, won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Mao II in 1992 (receiving a further PEN/Faulkner Award nomination for The Angel Esmeralda in 2012), was granted the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction in 2010, and won the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction in 2013.  See references in popular culture, bibliography and awards at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_DeLillo

SMS (Short Message Service) and MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) are both used in mobile phones for non-voice communications.  Some landline phones also have SMS capability.  While both SMS and MMS stand for the service, the abbreviations are often used in common parlance to mean the actual message itself that is sent using the service.  A standard SMS is usually 160 characters in length and can be sent from any regular mobile phone.  A standard MMS does not have a specific character limit.  One can, however, send music, animation and other interactive media with a MMS from a specially designed cellular handset that is capable of receiving and sending multimedia messages.  See a comparison chart and read about history, problems and pitfalls at http://www.diffen.com/difference/MMS_vs_SMS

British writer Michael White is a globally bestselling author of 39 books.  He has the unique distinction of being the only person in the world who has appeared in three Top 10 charts--as a novelist, as a non-fiction writer and as a pop musician.  Michael has sold over 4 million books in 40 languages.  Michael White has been a science editor of British GQ, a columnist for the Sunday Express in London and, in a previous incarnation, he was a member of the ’80s pop band, The Thompson Twins (1982).  Between 1984 and 1991 he was a science lecturer at d’Overbroeck’s College in Oxford before becoming a full-time writer.  Link to his portfolio at http://michaelwhite.com.au/about-michael-white/

The Wood Database  Browse by common name, scientific name or appearance at http://www.wood-database.com/

ArtPrize Seven in Grand Rapids. Michigan revealed the winners of $500,000 in prizes on October 9, 2015.  Two $200,000 Grand Prizes were awarded--through public vote toNorthwood Awakening by Loveless PhotoFiber, and by a jury of art experts to Higher Ground by Kate Gilmore.  Find a list of winners in the categories two-dimensional, three dimensional, installation, time-based and juried awards.  Jaenell Woods  http://www.artprize.org/blog/artprize-announces-the-winners-of-500000-in-awards

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1361  October 12, 2015  Many countries in the New World and elsewhere officially celebrate as a holiday the anniversary of Christopher Columbus' arrival in the Americas, which happened on October 12, 1492.  The landing is celebrated as Columbus Day in the United States, as Discovery Day in the Bahamas, as Día de la Raza ("Day of the Race") in many countries in Latin America, as Día de las Américas (Day of the Americas) in Belize and Uruguay, as Día del Respeto a la Diversidad Cultural (Day of Respect for Cultural Diversity) in Argentina, as Día de la Hispanidad and Fiesta Nacional in Spain, and as Giornata Nazionale di Cristopher Columbus or Festa Nazionale di Cristoforo Colombo in Italy and in the Little Italys around the world.  Columbus Day first became an official state holiday in Colorado in 1906, and became a federal holiday in the United States in 1937, though people have celebrated Columbus's voyage since the colonial period.  In the summer of 1990, 350 representatives from American Indian groups from all over the hemisphere, met in Quito, Ecuador, at the first Intercontinental Gathering of Indigenous People in the Americas, to mobilize against the quin-centennial celebration of Columbus Day.  The following summer, in Davis, California, more than a hundred Native Americans gathered for a follow-up meeting to the Quito conference.  They declared October 12, 1992, "International Day of Solidarity with Indigenous People".  The largest ecumenical body in the United States, the National Council of Churches, called on Christians to refrain from celebrating the Columbus quincentennial, saying, "What represented newness of freedom, hope, and opportunity for some was the occasion for oppression, degradation and genocide for others". 

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